Hi i'm new here to the forge and are currently working on my tabletop RPG called DrakeStrike which can be found on drakestrike.webs.com. Anyway do you think I can use this mechanic legal:That all attribute points before 5 is a 1- modifier, 5 is neutral and all points after 5 is 1+ modifier

Why I ask is because this mechanic is somewhat like the Dungeons and Dragons stat mechanic and I really find this mechanic interesting so I want to use it.What do you think/know?

Incidentally, standard practice is that we like to work with real names; Ron's mentioned it's hard to have meaningful conversations with handles. If you could provide a first name in your display name, signature, or profile, that'd be much appreciated.

wrt your question: I don't think there's a question of legality here at all. It's a little silly to trademark/patent/whatever the rights to having increasing/decreasing stats modify die rolls, otherwise a lot of systems would fall apart at the seams. Unless you're using copyrighted content (which you aren't), it's nothing to worry about. I've seen a hundred systems use 3d6 stats and d20 rolls per the style of Dungeons & Dragons, and no one's had a bad word to say. d20 is open license these days anyway, so even if someone had a problem, there's no legal ramifications regardless.

I'd love to see you talk about what's so fascinating about this mechanic and how it interplays with your system, but that probably belongs in First Thoughts.

You'll have to look at the specifics of the OGL license, but I believe so. Thing is, most of the unique monsters (Beholders, Mindflayers, etc.) are not included for open use- general monsters like orcs, werewolves, ogres, etc. generally are.

On top of that, the OGL license does require that a percentage of any game you produce ALSO becomes Open License. While that's not a huge deal in and of itself, it does mean that if you are marrying those parts of the game towards working with OGL- any future printings, revised editions, etc. will need you to fulfill the OGL requirements.

My recommendation is:1) design your game to do what you want before anything else.2) After you have a functioning game, decide if you really want to deal with OGL etc. Generally, unless you're making your game to work with types of D&D, it's not going to help as much as be an annoyance at this time.